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Inbound payments — setup and pairing

Inbound payments is the system that watches your bank account for incoming transfers and automatically matches each payment to the correct booking or order. When a client pays by bank transfer, Zooza picks it up, identifies which registration it belongs to, and records it — without manual entry.

Screenshot — inbound payments

How it works​

  1. Your client pays to your bank account using the reference number (variable symbol) from their invoice or payment schedule.
  2. The bank notifies Zooza (via GoCardless, email notification, or CSV import).
  3. Zooza parses the transaction and looks for a matching booking using the reference number.
  4. If a match is found and there are no issues, the payment is paired automatically and appears on the registration.
  5. If something is unclear, the payment lands in Manual review for you to handle.

Setting up ingestion​

All payment channel setup is done through the Setup wizard at Payments → Inbound → Setup. The wizard walks you through each channel — online card, direct debit, and cash / bank transfer — and lets you configure bank statement reading per billing profile.

Before Zooza can receive bank transfers, you must connect at least one ingestion channel.

GoCardless (open banking)​

GoCardless here acts as a bank account reader, not a payment processor. It monitors your bank account for incoming transactions and reports them to Zooza in real time.

This is separate from GoCardless as a direct debit gateway. GoCardless has two roles in Zooza — collecting direct debits from clients, and reading your bank account for incoming transfers. These are independent features.

To connect:

  1. Go to Payments → Inbound → Setup.
  2. In the Current setup screen, find your billing profile and click Reconnect (add IBAN) or configure it from the Cash / bank transfer step of the wizard.
  3. Select your bank and authorise GoCardless to read your transaction data (standard open banking consent flow).
  4. Once connected, incoming transactions are detected and processed automatically.

Important — consent expiry: Your open banking consent expires periodically (varies by bank, typically 90 days under PSD2). When it expires, transaction notifications stop. Zooza does not send an alert when the consent expires — you will notice the absence of incoming payments in the dashboard. Reconnect promptly via Payments → Inbound → Setup.

Bank email notifications​

Most banks can send you an email when a payment arrives. Zooza generates a unique email address for each of your billing profiles. You set your bank to forward payment notifications to that address.

To find your inbound email address:

  1. Go to Payments → Inbound → Setup.
  2. Open the Cash / bank transfer step.
  3. Select your billing profile and choose Email parser.
  4. Copy the generated email address and configure your bank to forward payment notifications to it.

Supported banks:

CountryBanks
SlovakiaTatra Banka, VÚB, SLSP (Slovenská sporiteľňa), UniCredit, Prima Banka, FIO, ČSOB
Czech RepublicČSOB, Raiffeisenbank, FIO, Komerční banka

Each bank uses a different email format — Zooza has a specific parser for each.

CSV import​

For manual or one-off import of bank statement data:

  1. Go to Payments → Inbound → Import.
  2. Upload a CSV file with the required columns: posting_date, amount, currency (required), plus optional payers_iban, variable_symbol, information_for_beneficiary.
  3. Each row is processed individually. Duplicates are detected and skipped automatically.

Maximum 100 rows per import.

How payments are matched​

Zooza uses the variable symbol (reference number) from the transaction as the primary matching mechanism. This is the number printed on the client's invoice and in their payment instructions — it matches the registration or order ID in Zooza.

Matching order:

  1. Variable symbol → registration — direct lookup by order number.
  2. Variable symbol → product order — if no registration found.
  3. Custom customer ID — if the client used their own customer ID as the reference number.

After a match is found, Zooza runs validation checks: the booking must be active, the payment status must allow new payments, and the schedule must not be expired.

Delegation chains: Some registrations delegate payment management to another registration (e.g. a parent registration managing siblings). Zooza follows these chains automatically and pairs to the correct managing registration.

Finally, an AI layer checks for duplicates — it confirms the match or flags anything suspicious for manual review.

Payment statuses​

StatusMeaning
New (manual review)Zooza could not match the payment automatically. You need to pair it or ignore it manually.
PairedPayment was matched to a registration and recorded in the payments ledger.
IgnoredPayment was identified as not relevant (rent, utilities, etc.) and will not be processed.

There is no "pending" state visible to admins — a payment is either waiting for you (New) or already handled (Paired/Ignored).

Manual review — what to do​

Payments that land in New status need your attention. Go to Payments → Inbound → List and look for payments with status New.

Pairing manually​

  1. Click the payment.
  2. Select the registration or order it belongs to.
  3. Confirm.

The payment is recorded on the booking and the payment status updates immediately.

Ignoring a payment​

If the payment is not related to Zooza (rent, utilities, salary, etc.):

  1. Click the payment.
  2. Click Ignore.
  3. Optionally, choose Create filter — Zooza will set up an automatic rule to ignore similar payments in the future (based on the payer's IBAN and payment note).

Ignore filters​

Filters let you automatically ignore recurring non-Zooza payments. When a filter matches an incoming payment, it is ignored immediately without any manual action.

A filter matches when:

  • The payer's IBAN matches exactly, AND
  • The note pattern matches (if configured).

Filters have built-in safeguards — a filter cannot be so broad that it starts catching real Zooza payments. If you manually override 3 ignored payments from the same filter (by pairing them instead), the filter is automatically deactivated.

You can manage filters in Payments → Inbound → AI Rules & Filters.

Business rules​

Business rules are natural language instructions you write to guide how payments are evaluated. They are included in the AI's context when it reviews incoming payments.

Example rules:

  • "Payments from IBAN SK12... arriving within 3 days of each other with the same amount are duplicates."
  • "When the reference number starts with 9, it belongs to a product order, not a course registration."

Rule types:

TypePurpose
DedupWhen to consider two payments duplicates
IgnoreWhen to ignore a payment regardless of match
PairingSpecial logic for matching payments to orders

To add rules: Payments → Inbound → AI Rules & Filters. Maximum 10 active rules per account.

Troubleshooting​

Payment is in manual review (New) — why wasn't it auto-paired?

Common reasons:

  • The client used a different reference number (not the variable symbol from the invoice).
  • The booking was cancelled or deleted by the time the payment arrived.
  • The payment schedule ended more than 3 months ago.
  • The payment amount is larger than the remaining balance (flagged as suspicious).
  • GoCardless consent has expired — no new transactions are being received.

Payments stopped arriving — GoCardless connection issue?

Go to Payments → Inbound → Setup and check the current setup screen. If a billing profile shows a reconnection warning (yellow or red status), click Reconnect (add IBAN) and go through the GoCardless authorisation flow again.

Duplicate payment appeared — how to handle it?

Ignore the duplicate. If you have a filter set up for the payer's IBAN, the duplicate would have been caught automatically. If not, manually ignoring it and creating a filter prevents future occurrences.